What is a simple example of relativity?

A Relative Example

One example of relativity is to imagine two people on a train playing ping-pong. The train is traveling at around 30 m/s north. When the ball is hit back and forth between the two players, the ball appears to the players to move north at a speed of around 2 m/s and then south at the speed of 2 m/s.

How is relativity used in everyday life?

The theory explains the behavior of objects in space and time, and it can be used to predict everything from the existence of black holes, to light bending due to gravity, to the behavior of the planet Mercury in its orbit. …

What is a simple example of general relativity?

A central idea in general relativity is the "principle of equivalence." An example is that two people, one in an elevator sitting on the surface of the earth, and the other in an elevator in outer space but accelerating upwards at the speed of 9.8 m/s2 (every second the object picks up speed of 9.8 m/s), will each …

What is a simple explanation of the theory of relativity?

What is general relativity? Essentially, it's a theory of gravity. The basic idea is that instead of being an invisible force that attracts objects to one another, gravity is a curving or warping of space. The more massive an object, the more it warps the space around it.

What are the effects of relativity?

Specifically, Special Relativity showed us that space and time are not independent of one another but can be mixed into each other and therefore must be considered as the same object, which we shall denote as space-time. The consequences of space/time mixing are: time dilation. and length contraction.

What did Albert Einstein say about time?

One of the most influential physicists to have ever lived, Albert Einstein, shared this view, writing, "People like us who believe in physics know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion." In other words, time is an illusion.

What is Albert Einstein relativity?

Albert Einstein, in his theory of special relativity, determined that the laws of physics are the same for all non-accelerating observers, and he showed that the speed of light within a vacuum is the same no matter the speed at which an observer travels, according to Wired.

Is E mc2 a relativity?

E = mc2, equation in German-born physicist Albert Einstein's theory of special relativity that expresses the fact that mass and energy are the same physical entity and can be changed into each other.

How did Einstein come up with relativity?

Einstein then wondered how light would behave in the accelerating room. … In his four papers, published in November 1915, Einstein laid the foundation of the theory. In the third in particular he used general relativity to explain the precession of the perihelion of Mercury.